Flint, Michigan’s lead-laced water catastrophe may have more Americans suspiciously eyeing their drinking water, but here in Connecticut, the greatest source of lead poisoning is in paint.

This is no surprise. Health officials, contractors and homeowners for years knew the risk of lead-based paint in older homes. Also widely known is that fact that despite a decades-old lead paint ban, lead remains prevalent in pre-1970s houses. These facts led to Connecticut’s passage of some of the country’s strictest lead testing laws.

What is puzzling and especially troubling now, however, is that even with these laws and even with this knowledge, Connecticut children continue to be lead poisoned. Each year, two or three are lead poisoned in the five-town Ledge Light Health District area alone.

Across the state, half of young children also are not tested for lead levels the proscribed two times before age three. In the Ledge Light Health District, which encompasses East Lyme, Groton, Waterford, New London and Ledyard, the news is even worse. Just 30 percent of young children in those towns are tested twice, as required by state law.

Not only are these facts puzzling, they are downright reprehensible considering the serious, lifelong problems lead poisoning causes. These health issues range from behavioral problems to kidney disease and hypertension. The fact that lead poisoning is completely preventable makes the facts even more troubling.

Public health officials can’t say with certainty why young children are not being tested as required. Pediatricians may not take the testing requirement seriously because Connecticut laws are stricter than those in other jurisdictions. Some physicians also may equate lead poisoning solely with the inner city and high-poverty areas.

Those correlations are accurate, but simply don’t go far enough. Because so much of Connecticut’s housing stock was built before the 1970s, lead poisoning risks locally go well beyond these narrow parameters. In April, TrendCT.org, a publication of the Connecticut News Project Inc., released data showing a more complete and nuanced picture of lead risk in the state.

On a lead risk scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest, TrendCT data showed many southeastern Connecticut towns earned surprisingly high risk levels. Parts of Groton, Waterford and East Lyme scored risk levels of seven, while some Stonington and Ledyard neighborhoods scored at eight and Norwich and New London were at the highest risk level of 10.

While the numbers are evidence lead risk needs to be taken seriously no matter a person’s address, other outdated stereotypes about lead poisoning also must be discarded. Lead poisoning is not, as was once commonly believed, caused only when children eat paint chips. While ingestion of peeling paint certainly is one cause of lead poisoning, elevated blood lead levels also often are caused by breathing lead dust.

Painted surfaces rubbing against one another, from opening and closing windows, for example, are a prime source of lead dust. This dust, however, often is effectively invisible.

Public health officials are working to increase education about lead risks, especially in minority and high-poverty communities where the risk is greatest. Certainly, this education is one commonsense step. With the World Health Organization saying there is no known safe level of lead exposure, it’s especially important that as much of the public as possible knows how to detect, encapsulate and work safe when renovating older homes, for example. Landlords and homeowners should be sure to hire contractors who are trained and certified in lead-safe techniques and lists of these companies are available at the Connecticut Department of Public Health’s website.

Beyond education, however, physicians must follow state law and there should be consequences if they do not. The responsibility is theirs to ensure each young child in their care has his or her blood lead levels tested twice before the child’s third birthday. That is every Connecticut child’s right and the potential consequences of lead poisoning are simply too serious to ignore this important state law.